


The Apprentice and the Morningstar

by CalicoTomcat



Series: Falling Stars [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Assassination Attempt(s), Blood, Canon Atypical Violence, Death, Gen, Gore, Minor Character Death, Original Character Death(s), Violence, basically just one giant unprovable headcanon, could be considered a really violent prequel episode to the main series, seriously there's just like a ton of blood in here i am so sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-04
Updated: 2016-11-04
Packaged: 2018-08-28 22:35:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8465539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CalicoTomcat/pseuds/CalicoTomcat
Summary: Princess Allura of Altea stands as a witness and as a survivor to one of the greatest betrayals in recorded history.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This entire story basically started because I wanted to know why Allura insisted her father use the Lions to form Voltron during the flashback. If Zarkon was the Black Paladin at the time and thus the only person bonded with the Black Lion, how was that going to be possible?
> 
> Four Lions do not a Voltron make. Someone, somewhere on that Castle had to be able to fly the Black Lion if they were going to form Voltron. How else were they going to use it against Zarkon?
> 
> So for that question, I present to you my explanation. 
> 
> This contains serious spoilers for some things that are going to be revealed later in my main fic, Stardust, Silk and Steel.

Something is wrong.

Allura can feel it, deep down in her marrow.

Something is very, _very_ wrong.

And she fears she knows what it is.

 

The Paladins of Voltron are here on a shared, distant territory between the worlds Altea and Galra to settle a war before it can begin.

It is hard to say who fired first, or why, for in the aftermath of that first conflict there were no survivors who knew what had sparked the battle and few survivors at all. They had all been blindsided by the bloodshed. All that remained of that moon, of the Alteans and the Galra who had been stationed together on that training site, was rubble. The entire moon itself had been torn apart by the conflict in less than a day and a night. That there were survivors at all was a cosmic miracle.

All anyone really knew was that Galra, in subsequent days, had declared that Altea and anyone who sided with her people were enemies to the liberated realms. It was not a declaration of war, yet, but it was a blatant cutting of ties. They had drawn the lines.

Stars knew why, but that was their reaction.

It was as if Altea had not once upon a time liberated the Galra people from the Zraxien conquerers, ushering in an era of prosperity and freedom for the cosmos as they liberated the universe from the Zrax invaders side-by-side.

Voltron had been created as the Liberator, built together by Altea under the threat of invasion and Galra under the promise of freedom, a desperate effort with a million forgotten secrets, and had stood for over _a hundred thousand_ years as the bond between their worlds- a bond once thought unbreakable.

Voltron had stood for millennia as the Peacekeeper, the Liberator of worlds, the Champion of systems, the child of Galra and Altea…

For Galra to turn her back on Altea so suddenly was beyond shocking.

For Galra to turn her back on Altea after killing the Altean Queen was _inconceivable_.

Allura reasons with herself, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other as she marches down the hallway; it was _coincidence_ her mother was there. It was tragic, horrific coincidence that Queen Eris had come to supervise joint training exercises between the Altean and Galran forces when the bloodshed erupted.

It was only coincidence.

It has to be.

Thousands upon thousands of slaughtered Alteans and Galra alike; the Queen was only one among many. One of many. A coincidence.

She has to be.

Anything else carries far too dark an implication.

Anything else would mean Queen Eris ( _kind, fearless Eris, with midnight hair and skin of topaz_ ) had been targeted, had been murdered to disrupt not only the governing King and Court of Altea, but quite possibly even the very Paladins of Voltron itself. It would mean her death was meant to rupture the bond between the pilots and _shatter_ Voltron.

The Yellow Lion, her beloved husband.

The Red Lion, her dearest cousin.

The Black Lion, her only daughter.

Three Lions, bonded all to the Queen by their heartstrings. Delicate, tender heartstrings.

And the death of Queen Eris would cut through them all like a warm blade through Vreshan butter.

Allura turns her thoughts away and straightens her shoulders. She blinks away the growing tears, blinks away the knowledge that she inherited her mother’s beauty, her mother’s heart. The knowledge that her family still sees the lost Eris in her face even when Allura cannot find her mother in the mirror no matter how hard she searches… She struggles, but she finds so much of her father in her face, in her eyes and her hair and her nose that she cannot see it…

She buries her pain. She thinks only with reason.

It is only a tragic coincidence her mother is among the dead.

It has to be.

_It has to be_.

 

Allura, despite the color of her armor and the status with which it marks her, walks in the middle of the group. She watches her uncles lace their fingers together quietly, with each other and themselves as she witnesses them afraid and unsure for the first time in her young life. In all the years she has known them they have never walked with fear, no matter how bleak the world looked. Only her father is able to move without trepidation and she knows in her heart that he is afraid too- he’s only better at hiding it.

She tries not to paw at the weight of her armor. She tries not to struggle with the history it bears, the meaning it holds. She tries, but…

_The weight of it is suffocating_.

It doesn’t feel right. She wasn’t supposed to be wearing this at all for _at least_ a decade, maybe even two. She wasn’t supposed to wear it permanently for even longer. She had only started her apprenticeship a few years ago, and only a year before Zarkon took his sudden leave of absence. She’s been an Apprentice-adrift for nearly three years.

There has never in Voltron’s history been an Apprentice-adrift more than a year before; most are only left unsure of their status for a few short months before the absent but living Paladin either returns to their post or decides they do not want to.

Then the Lion was changed to new hands properly through ceremony or the absent Paladin issued their retirement statement to the combined fleets, thus allowing the Apprentice to formally claim the Lion as their own.

Neither has happened.

Her armor is still, technically, Zarkon’s. By law and by history, the armor on her back belongs to him. She still belongs in her Apprentice uniform, she is not yet a Paladin. She hasn’t the training, the experience, the divulged wisdom. She isn’t ready yet. She will not be ready for many years.

She feels like an imposter in black. And in Black.

She knows the Black Lion chose her, and that the Lions are _rare_ to make mistakes of any kind, the Black Lion least of all, but _stars above_ how she feels unfit. Her bond with the Lion feels tenuous on a good day.

Zarkon had once told her that only was her anxiety talking, that she was simply thinking too hard- her bond with her Lion would only be as strong as she believed it was. It was a simple case of mind over matter, courage over fear. Believe in her bond, and she will be fine. Believe in herself, and she will be fine.

And though she does not want to admit it she believes deep in her heart that her bond with the Black Lion is hanging by a silk thread.

Now she is the only Apprentice without a Paladin. She has no teacher to help her unfold the secrets of her Lion, to teach her to connect with the creature on a spiritual level. She has no one to ease her into her role as Paladin.

Her father cannot help her. He belongs to the Yellow Lion. The secrets he shares are with his Apprentices and them alone. The Black Lion is all but a mystery to him.

Her uncles are no help. Anduel belongs in Red, Xarel in Blue. They know even less than Alfor does only because as the Altean King he has been given an education in the bare essentials of all the Lions. The same education she herself has already received. They know even less than she does.

She imagines Kharine knows _something_ , but that’s only because he hunts for knowledge with the ferocity of a trakamoor and the dogged determination of a Dlaarian wolfwhin. Once he sets his mind to learning something he cannot be stopped. She knows the Green Paladin is the secret keeper of his team and must know details of the other Lions, but even if he knows anything she doubts it would be something useful- he has a knack for _pointless trivia_.

Who honestly needs to know the amount of weight a Zarellian hellcat can pull? Or how many pups a wild trakamoor gestates at a time? Who _honestly_ needs to know the seventeen uses for the pollen of a Vaxx roselily?

No; she _needs_ Zarkon. She needs his wisdom. She needs his experience. She needs his patient voice and his comforting hand and his warm humor-

She needs her missing uncle back.

As they march toward the meeting hall the Apprentices in red and blue tease each other with quiet trills that the others pretend not to hear- the pair are nowhere near as subtle as they like to believe they are, but their quiet murmurings are a welcome relief from the suffocating tension in the air.

And even if they were subtle, they are still Red and Blue. Fire and Water. They were drawn to each other before they ever met. It was an unspoken law for the Lions that Fire and Water were drawn together across any distance in ways that defied reason and convention. Wars older than Voltron and engulfing whole star systems had been ended because the Red and Blue Lions had found their Paladins from opposing sides.

At the very least the growing affection between the Apprentices wouldn’t surprise anyone.

Especially when their Paladins were so open about it.

 

A hand brushes against hers and her step hiccups before she catches herself, letting the slender fingers slip against her own.

The Green Apprentice, Fe, is the initiate she had connected with back during the Apprenticing ceremony. She and they had been sitting for their respective Lions as a courtesy, as representatives of their people. Allura was the Altean Princess- it was not only her _birthright_ but her _obligation_ to sit for the Black Lion and all other Lions in turn as part of the ceremony before any other initiates were presented. Her father had been the first royal Altean in ten thousand years to be chosen by a Lion. Allura had (quite reasonably) expected it would be another ten thousand before royal blood was called again to a Lion’s helm.

Fe was the child of powerful ambassadors, the child of representatives for an entire solar system on the fringes of the mapped universe wealthy with rare resources and desperate for trading partners. Their parents had been in turn leaders of their system’s governing body, serving their home for many years before they came to represent their people in a distant land. Fe was a timid, willowy creature, bookish, with five wide green eyes and a propensity for rambling.

Neither one had expected to be chosen. The pair had bonded over their insecurities and found themselves drawn to each other, finding they connected to each other with the kind of fluidity that the other Apprentices struggled to reach and that the Paladins had quietly applauded. Even the Red and Blue Apprentices, Nyyma and Sarren, had not bonded so easily, and the two of them were practically woven from the same stardust.

Allura laces her hand with Fe’s and squeezes gently. They do not need to speak to each other. They understand without words. Fe runs their thumb over the back of her hand for a tick and a half before slipping away and falling back behind their Paladin- Allura’s heart twists behind her ribs as she is reminded of the gulf that now exists between them. The easy intimacy between her and the Rhodarian is at odds with her position as a standing Paladin- even if she is still technically and officially an Apprentice.

_Adrift_ is certainly the right word to describe how Allura feels right now.

 

Armored guards usher open the doors to the meeting hall and Allura bows her head in thanks, stepping through with her face carefully molded into a neutral expression.

It is the first time in three years that Allura has seen Zarkon, and she struggles against her own instinct to run to him and embrace him the way she does with all the Paladins, with all her family. The way she has done since she was a small child. It pains her deep in her soul not to embrace her beloved uncle Zarkon.

She sees something in his eyes, a flash of emotion that quickly vanishes, too fast for her to identify, and she quietly hopes it is the same yearning in her heart.

She hopes he can settle this, and come home.

This is the reason she is here, that are all here; to end this war before it can begin and bring their absent Paladin home.

Kharine smiles openly at his old friend, undeterred when he receives a curiously flat expression in response. Alfor rises to the front of the group against all convention (it is supposed to be the Black Lion’s responsibility to stand before an ambassadorial figure; it is _her_ responsibility to represent Voltron) and greets Zarkon with the appropriate Galran salute, his hand over his chestplate.

She notices a momentary slump in her father’s shoulders when Zarkon does not return the gesture before seating himself at the table.

She knows it is a grave slight. The way Xarel and Nova gasp faintly beside him, faces distraught and confused, would tell her this if she had not already known.

The Paladins take their seats at the long table in the center of the room, their Apprentices standing behind them as is tradition.

Alfor seats himself in the center across from Zarkon and Allura does not know if this is more a slight against his former friend or against his own daughter. The bitter, sharp offense she feels in her stomach makes her think it might be the latter. She only hopes it is a slight made because he is the Altean King and officially outranks the Black Lion under nearly all circumstances.

Except in this one. He is here on behalf of the Court of Altea as a _Paladin_ , not a _King_.

She seats herself in the space to her father’s left, Kharine sitting between them with an uneasy aura as she takes the chair meant for the Yellow Paladin. The Apprentice in Yellow, the Galran Nova, pins his ears and moves to stand behind Alfor. Allura considers it appropriate- _she would never wrong him for taking the position behind his Paladin_ \- and she schools her face into the picture of serenity with all the grace and ease a young Princess is expected to master. Kharine touches her arm reassuringly under the table.

If this slight is all that she has to suffer to resolve this, she can stomach it without complaint.

She is Princess Allura, future Queen of Altea, future Paladin to the Black Lion; _her blood is laced with starlight_. She straightens her spine the way her mother taught her and folds her hands together carefully in her lap, staring ahead resolutely.

She is _above_ this.

 

The soldiers stationed ceremonially by the doors and behind their representative shift restlessly as the talks go on, hours blending together, and although Allura understands their discomfort (she is bored beyond reason by politics, and always has been) she takes deep offense at their behavior. Her eyes narrow in disdain and her teeth grind together with quiet frustration.

Zarkon is here on behalf of the Empress. _They_ are here on behalf of the Empress. To represent the Empress, the entire Galran people is supposed to be one of the highest of honors. They stand as her emissaries to the outside worlds.

The absolute least they could do is to stop _fidgeting_ and take this event _seriously_.

The Paladins of Voltron are here at the behest of King Alfor and the Altean Court to prevent a full-scale _war_ from breaking out. _Lives are at stake_.

Lives _are_ at stake, though Allura does not yet realize how true that statement is.

 

Allura does not hear her attacker until it is very nearly too late.

Fe, however, hears them in time.

Rhodarians are descended from prey animals, light on their feet and sensitive to the slightest changes in scent, sensitive to the tiniest sounds. Unlike Alteans, they come from a world of sincerely dangerous wildlife. Fe’s ears swivel a full tick before Allura’s pick up any sound at all.

Had they not broken away from their half-ceremonial, half-sacrificial position behind Kharine (Apprentices are always unarmed during political negotiations, a sign of trust), Allura’s head would have been separated from her neck by the unseen blade of a Galran soldier.

That does not make it easier for Allura, knowing that Fe took a blow that would have killed her outright, but it is something she has to acknowledge. This was what all the Paladins were trained to do, what _she_ was training to do- protect each other, even at cost to themselves. Fe is fast enough to save Allura, but not fast enough to disarm the assassin in time, and though the blade does not go through and through the way it was meant to they are still almost certainly mortally wounded.

The room erupts in chaos and in noise as the Rhodarian collapses in a pool of their own mercury-silver blood.

Nova lunges at the same time Allura tears herself from her seat, the Galran Apprentice almost feral as he strikes out with nothing more than claws and rage at the soldier who nearly divided Fe in two. Allura lunges with her bayard as it flashes to form, her morningstar- this is the first time she’s ever summoned her weapon. Its shape surprises her.

Its shape is the same one Zarkon’s takes.

To say it is unusual is an understatement. She cannot recall a time in Voltron’s history when a Paladin and their Apprentice had the same initial-manifest bayard. The initial form is said to be unique to the individual’s personality and quintessence.

The impact of her morningstar-bayard is concrete and the Galran soldier flies backward, streaming brilliant orange blood from the crumbling, shredded wounds in her side. The wounded soldier makes a wet, throaty gasping noise from somewhere deep in her throat as she falls back against the wall. Allura knows almost instinctively in the darkest recesses of her mind that she shattered at least five ribs on impact, damaged at least four vital organs with the bone splinters, quite likely nicking a major artery in the process- but the Galran will most likely drown as her own blood pours into her lungs, given _where,_ _what_ and _how_ Allura struck.

And given the horrible, sticky wheezing the towering Galran is making as she struggles to remain upright, it’s easy for Allura to imagine she’s _already_ drowning. It won’t take long, not long at all, but for the dying Galran it will feel like an eternity.

A horrible way to go, really.

Just _horrible_.

But Allura can’t help the truly nauseating feeling that it’s _deserved_.

 

Never in her life had she dreamed she would wish suffering upon her mentor, upon someone who was once family.

Never in her life had she dreamed she would lunge with the intent to kill someone she loved.

Loves.

_Loved._

In a hundred million years she would never have dreamed she would try to _kill_ Zarkon.

Never would she have imagined she would ever have _wanted_ to. But here she is, horrified and furious, whipping around with every intent to slaughter him where he stands as she understands now why she is here, why they are all here. He did not bring them here to broker peace.

_He brought them here to die_.

Bloodshed and screaming fill the air all around her as the trap is set, the trap she had prayed was only an anxiety, a flight of fancy, another moment she thought and overthought again and again; chaos all around her but Allura can only see the man she once loved like family, can only see him as she pictures how she’ll murder him…

She lunges across the table with blood on her bayard and a shriek on her lips.

_She will kill him or she will die trying_.

At last she understands the old Galran battle-standard. Victory or death. _Vrepit Sa_. The thought surges to the forefront of her mind as her morningstar arcs through the air.

_Vrepit Sa_.

Fitting, really.

But he is prepared for her and dodges her blow- _she swung for his head, she swung too high_ \- and strikes up, knocking his bayard, her bayard, their bayard from her grasp, sending the weapon clattering to the floor beyond her line of sight. Allura does not have the time to catch her breath before he moves again. She does not have the time to blink.

Her former mentor’s hands clasp like iron around her neck and her body slams backwards into the table with such force she is distantly amazed it does not break beneath her. She strikes out at his chest with her legs again and again and sinks her nails into Zarkon’s huge calloused hands until she draws blood, but her struggle does not faze him. She tries to shapeshift, to make herself his height and level the field between them so that he does not have nearly the size advantage he is so accustomed to. He only clenches her throat harder as she struggles, golden eyes glazed over with cold determination as Allura feels her lungs begin to burn white-hot within her chest.

_It was a mistake to seek peace._

_It was a mistake to come here._

_It was a mistake Allura fears she will not survive_.

A flash of red and a spray of thick orange blood and suddenly Allura can breathe again; she does not hesitate to scramble away as Zarkon recoils, hissing and snarling as glimmering tangerine spills from a deep gash on his face. Anduel positions himself between his blood niece and his former leader, the short blade of his red bayard dripping with Zarkon’s lifeblood. He flares with animal fury and looks as if he’s only a heartbeat away from bursting into flame outright before he lunges.

Allura reels away as she sucks air into her lungs, her skull pounding with nauseating dizziness, throat raw and tender from where still feels the massive clawed hands crushing the life out of her. It takes a long tick before the white haze at the edges of her vision dissipates. It takes longer still for her trembling legs (from the pain, the fear, or the lack of air, she cannot say for sure) to steady beneath her.

 

In her nightmares she never saw a sight so horrible.

She came of age during a two thousand year era of peace. She ascended to her Lion in the longest period of sustained peace on Altean record. She never dreamed…

She never _dreamed_ …

A rainbow painted in bloodshed against dark metal walls.

Rich magenta, vibrant orange, shimmering silver, _alien_ red…

Thick, dark blue, washing over the others in horrific waves, drowning them all out by the sheer volume of it.

The blue streams out of Sarren’s chest, stark against the sharp white of his Apprentice uniform, nearly black against the deep red of his flesh. The gaping, cavernous wound in the center of his broad chest that she swears goes through and through pours his blood out over the floor like a river. He lays crumpled at Xarel’s feet as the Galran Paladin roars and struggles with a soldier.

Sarren does not move.

The people of Vaxx are tough, durable. Hardy reptilian predators born of a dry, brutal planet. Breaking their thick sand-red hides requires a weapon of incredible force.

Allura does not know what could have killed him so effortlessly. She ignores the fear that bubbles under her skin- now is the time for courage, to conquer her fears. She is _above_ her fear.

Nyyma roars with all the fury of a planet-wide wildfire as she leaps and sinks her needle sharp teeth into the neck of a Galran soldier with an armored forearm stained blue. The soldier stands head and shoulders above her, but his size does not protect him. Nyyma rips her head back with a scream as he tries to fend her off. Tangerine stains her lips.

Kharine supports Fe as they struggle to stem the pulsing flow of sliver lifeblood from their upper abdomen. The blade was serrated, the blow hard, so even if that cut did not sink as deep as it was meant…

Rhodarians are delicate, with thin scaly skin and easily damaged organs. Allura _knows_ this. She knows this deep in her heart as she sinks to her knees beside them.

She knows Fe will not make it back to the Castle. Fe will never make it to a healing pod.

Fe, if the tears shining in their bloodshot eyes are any indication, knows this too, and grasps her hand. Allura grips it tightly between her own, uncaring of the slick blood that seeps through her gloves and slides against her fingers as she holds their hand tighter.

So much flits between them in that moment Allura fears her heart will rupture.

Something else ruptures instead and the world turns midnight black. Allura loses the ability to breathe or hear for several ticks.

 

The world rings around her as the blackness clears.

Nyyma rises through the smoke and ash, backlit by violet hallway light Allura never thought she would see again, Sarren’s hulking mass supported by her thin shoulders; she screams for everyone to run, her indigo eyes burning with the intensity of a supernova. Her face is half shredded and streaked with her own scarlet blood. One of her four head-tendrils is torn open and apart and pulses thin lifeblood down her chest. The dead Galra at her feet is so disfigured- from the explosion or from Nyyma’s teeth Allura cannot say…

Were she not Allura’s friend…

Were she not an ally…

Allura would be _terrified_.

She can see now why the Red Lion chose Nyyma. For years she had wondered how the sweet, tender creature who was more inclined to run than to fight and threw up at the mere thought of blood had _ever_ drawn the eye of the difficult Guardian Spirit of Flame. The Red Lion calls for Paladins of instinct, courage, ferocity. Nyyma was no such creature. Even the notoriously calm Anduel had shown spirit that fit his Lion, but Nyyma…

But she can see now. The Dlaarian has fire in her soul- she is only gentle until struck, until her hand is forced, and _then_ she unleashes the fury of all the gods in all the cosmos upon her enemies. And she does not hold back.

She is terrifying.

No one tells Nyyma to leave Sarren’s corpse behind.

No one dares deny her that comfort.

She will bury him or be buried beside him, and rain cosmic hell upon any who stand in her way.

Allura pulls the trembling Fe into her arms as Nyyma and Kharine clear a path, she with a gun and he with his bayard- Allura does not know where the Dlaarian got that weapon and she dares not ask. She hears the thunder of bootsteps behind her and the sound of her father’s voice as he issues a command to his apprentice, as he calls to the other Paladins, and she surges forward. She does not have the time to look back.

She can only run.

Fe tucks their head under her chin, face pressing into the thrumming, bruising pulse of her neck, and Allura runs until her legs burn.

And then she keeps running.

 

The Black Lion takes off before Allura is even in the cockpit, only barely past the Lion’s teeth and in her hold when the giant metal paws leave the security of the stable earth.

She lays Fe at her feet, their head in her lap as she throws every ounce of focus she has into flying her Lion back toward the Castle.

Her Lion.

_Now_ she feels like a Paladin.

Of course she does.

A flurry of Galran Stardrops- dangerously fast single person fighter ships- arc through the air above the Lions and Allura lets herself swear a vicious fuchsia streak as she rounds the Black Lion on them. It is a surprise that there is a backup force (she thought the trap in the meeting hall was quite enough _thank you_ ) but evidently Zarkon was not going to be taking any chances today. Were it not for the fact she nearly died she would almost have to applaud his careful planning.

Fe wraps one hand weakly over Allura’s leg and buries their face in the meat of her thigh as she charges straight through the Stardrops and begins tearing them apart like paper dolls.

Allura takes the gesture as a sign the Rhodarian might pull through.

Nyyma leads the Lions home in the seat of the Red Lion. It is not until Allura hears Nyyma calling for her over the comms and hailing the Black Lion that she realizes she lost track of her blood uncle Anduel in the fray. She saw him free her, she saw him corner Zarkon, and then she lost him. She lost track of almost everyone in the chaos.

Her eyes flicker over the screens until she catches sight of Anduel, mangled intestines hanging out from within his body, armor stained so thoroughly she can see only magenta and scarlet, cradled in the arms of his partner Xarel as the Blue Lion flies under his command from willpower alone. The Altean’s skin is bloodless, pulse shallow in his throat, and she fears in her heart she will lose him too. It is a miracle Allura does not retch at the sight of her uncle eviscerated and bleeding to death.

It is even more a miracle that Xarel does not retch as his lover lays dying in his embrace.

Nyyma calls again for Allura, roaring, this time with Xarel, Kharine and Alfor all backing her up, and Allura pulls herself from the fray and rockets toward the security of the Castle in the span of a shuddering heartbeat.

She does not release the Stardrop from the Black Lion’s jaws until she is reminded it is there, and before she throws it free she gives it a violent, bone-breaking, muscle-shredding _shake_ , all but guaranteeing the pilot within would die by her teeth if they had not already.

She was only caught up in the battle for a few ticks but she tore through over a dozen fighters in that timeframe, buying enough time for the others to make it to the security of the Castle and the Castle’s protective Fleet just above the atmosphere of this planetoid before the Stardrops could descend upon them.

 

By the time she reaches the Castle, Fe has gone limp.

She holds them in her arms, ready to race for a healing pod, ready to race to save her- her dearest friend, but when she holds them close she realizes they never stood a chance. Silver glitters across the entirety of the Black Lion’s inner workings, more blood than Allura had ever thought she would see in her lifetime.

They likely died before Allura ever even engaged the first Stardrop. There was nothing she could have done.

That does not mean she will not blame herself, however.

She presses her forehead to the Rhodarian’s as she carries them out into the hangar. Their soft scaly flesh is ice cold against her own. Her heart is echoing violently in her ears and she cannot hear anything but the shallow intake and exhale of her own breathing as she moves- even the sound of her boots against metal is beyond her. She cannot see through her own tears, through the blood and through the pain. She does not see Kharine until he is already upon her, already reaching for his Apprentice in her arms.

Allura lets him take Fe without a fight. She does not have the energy to deny him.

Kharine cradles Fe close to his chest like he would a child, _his_ child, a pitiful keening low in his throat as he collapses to his knees and curls over the young figure’s cold corpse.

He howls with heartbreak of a parent. She knew he had loved Fe t- loved Fe, but she had not realized just how deep that affection ran. He mourns over the corpse of the only child he had ever had, wailing the loss of the only child he would ever have, and his scream is something that will come to haunt Allura for the rest of her life.

It is that sound of unbridled _agony_ that finally short-circuits Allura’s brain.

She collapses in the Black Lion’s hangar as everything sinks in all at once. Her hands glimmer with silver in the light, and when she wipes at her damp face (chasing after sweat or tears, she does not know) they’re stained and smeared with warm orange, too. She sucks in a trembling breath and stumbles until she is sprawled at the Black Lion’s claws.

She does not know how long she lays there, with only a howling Paladin and a bloodless corpse for company, counting her heartbeats as her universe shatters around her.

She only knows it feels like years before someone finds her.

She only knows it feels like years before anyone finds her.

It feels like years before Coran, who had been on the Bridge all the way across the Castle when she landed, finds her and embraces her as carefully as he can and as roughly as he dares. It feels like years again before Allura can find the strength to embrace him in return, until she can find her limbs again and hold her shaking uncle. She buries her head in his chest, ignoring the rainbow of blood she smears across his uniform, and she cries. She wails. She _screams_. He lets her. He holds her close, stroking her hair, murmuring things she does not have the strength to understand, and he lets her scream.

She does not know how long she cries into his arms.

She only knows she cries until she no longer has the strength to keep her eyes open.

When she stumbles out of a healing pod an undeterminable number of days later (she hadn’t realized her arm had been broken in the fray, that she had been shot and singed by gunfire as she ran) she is too empty to cry any more. Everything she has been through has drained her of feeling.

_Betrayal._

_Tragedy._

_Truth_?

Allura finds that she does not know, and she finds that she does not care.

 

The days pass in a haze.

Despite her emptiness Allura cannot bear to be alone. Nyyma spends her nights beside the Princess, abandoning any pretenses of a proper divide between them, the two of them sleeping back to back that neither one sees the tears they shed or the pain in their hearts. They cannot bear to be seen that way, but they cannot bear to sleep alone.

Sarren is buried in a Paladin grave on Altea, and Fe is buried in a Paladin grave beside him. They had been best friends and partners in mischief during their short lives- it was only right they enter the afterlife side-by-side. The funeral was magnificent. It was the first time Allura had ever seen Rhodarian starflowers, and they’re just as lovely as Fe had always described. She plucked a few and later that night pressed them into an old book of poetry the Rhodarian had given her, hiding the book in her dresser.

She does not comment when she sees Nyyma tuck something into Sarren’s cold hands, something bronze and shining that looks painfully like a traditional Vaxx engagement bracelet. It is much too large for Nyyma; it must have been her gift for him. Allura had suspected…

Anduel lives. By the skin of his teeth, by the will of the stars, _he lives_.

Allura sees the guilt he carries, that Xarel carries. They dare not embrace in front of Nyyma. They dare not let her see what she has lost. To be woven from the same stardust carries risks…

Nova vanishes. No one can say where he went or when, only that there was a moment he was aboard the Castle, mourning Fe’s death with open, broken-hearted anguish, and then he was gone. No one questions it. They cannot bear to. They all fear the answer they might receive.

Only Allura and Nyyma remain of the Apprentices brought together by the threads of fate four years ago, and they are hardly whole.

Allura does not stop Nyyma from picking at her wounds, and Nyyma does not force Allura to eat when Coran brings them their meals- Nyyma refuses to be healed properly, and she is never caught off-guard. She wants to keep the scars, the pain. Allura cannot bear to let anything but air and water pass through her throat; _she can still feel the hands upon her, even when she knows_ … The two are content to lie in Allura’s bed in silence as the days and nights bleed together. They do not come when called, no matter who calls for them. They do not accept any consolation, no matter who offers it to them.

It is only when the planet Dlaara sends out a beacon of distress as a Galran fleet descends into her atmosphere that the two of them find their way through the fog and _feel_ again.

It is a fight to keep Nyyma from the helm of the Red Lion.

It is a fight to get Allura into the helm of the Black Lion.

Allura smuggles Nyyma into her cockpit at the last possible tick before launch and the pair of them almost single-handedly shred half the fleet in their claws. Allura is too far gone from the others to form Voltron, barely able to hang on to her Lion at all, but Voltron is hardly needed. They liberate Dlaara before the invasion can even be completed.

The Apprentices are cleansed by their white-hot fury.

And slowly they begin to heal. They begin to cool. They will recover. In time, they will recover.

Allura will heal, though she does not yet know it.

She and Nyyma clasp each other’s wrists once they land, and when they disembark from the Black Lion they walk into the dining hall together, ready again to try and face the world.

 

History, though Allura does not know it yet, now sets itself on the course to repeat.

For as long as Voltron the Liberator exists, so will there exist forces small or grand from which worlds need liberation. In time a new force will stand between freedom and the people of the universe.

And so history repeats.

**Author's Note:**

> There’s a lot of stuff here so you can just skip it if you don’t want to deal with my rambling. It’s no skin off my back, I just like talking.
> 
>  
> 
> I know I didn’t clarify entirely, but it’s not just Fe’s death that Allura is so broken about. It’s Zarkon’s open betrayal, it’s her own brush with death, the fact that her mother was targeted, the war starting; it’s a lot of shit for one young woman to grapple with. Add on top of all that two of her dearest friends dying before her very eyes and it’s a miracle she’s still standing.
> 
> Not all my headcanons for this event and for these characters made it in. A lot of stuff regarding Allura’s mom I decided wanted to put in my main fic, and the very important detail of non-Paladin characters being bonded to the Lions (the way Allura is in the main series) is totally unaddressed here even though it is actually a big deal and holds serious influence over what happened to Queen Eris. I really want to see official expansion on that right now because currently I am in headcanon hell. I mean… Obviously I’m in headcanon hell- I wrote this.
> 
> I picked the name Eris because it was phonetically similar to Arus and I thought ‘well any planet with that name would definitely be picked as a hiding place by a broken hearted widower’. Also, Eris is a cool name. 
> 
> In episode two Coran was being dramatic and there was a funny scene with him going on this bit ‘oh no Allura’s head fell off’ and I thought; “Wouldn’t it be funny if I took that little bit of dialogue and made it so that it’s not funny at all ever again?” Because I like the idea of really awful callbacks and I am just a terrible human being.
> 
> I specifically used the words ‘manifest’ bayard to describe the morningstar because we’ve seen (at least for Zarkon) that a bayard goes through a number of forms. Knowing that Allura has described the shape as unique to the Paladin I think that means the initial form more than anything, and my thought is that each Paladin has a handful of forms they can learn to use given enough time and training. I’m thinking like three to five options and each list is unique to the Paladin. Like, Hunk wouldn’t have a little grappling hook and Pidge wouldn’t have a giant two-hand gatling-gun. 
> 
> A few more notes-
> 
> Sarren is supposed to be one of those cool aliens with the dark red skin and four horns that we see when Shiro and Pidge rescue the prisoners from the Galra ship. I love that design and I want to see more of it but I have discovered I hate drawing it and will likely sooner gnaw off my own hand at the wrist than ever try to draw him again.
> 
> Nyyma is meant to be the same species as our Nyma. I headcanon that she became a major figure of the rebellion on her home planet when Voltron was scattered and even though it was eventually conquered by the Galra she died a martyr, and to honor her variations of her name became some of the most popular names for her world. (Nyyma, Nyma, Nhyma)
> 
> Fe is from an original species with silver snake-like skin, five feline eyes and big equine ears. Their species doesn’t really have a concept of gender. (The species will appear later in Stardust, Silk and Steel.) I don’t know how obvious it was but I realize I ended up implying they and Allura had feelings for each other and I just want to state for the record that it was not originally my plan. I did not intend to ship my oc with Allura, it just kind of happened. A lot of the time my writing gets away from me and characters act in unexpected ways. This was one of those times.
> 
> I am going to explain in my main fic why Allura’s not the current Black Paladin in case anyone was wondering about that. Don’t worry, there is an explanation and it ties into my ideas surrounding non-Paladin characters being bonded to the Lions.
> 
> And if you read all of these notes I am sorry. I tried to be as brief as possible and cut a lot of my rambling.


End file.
